


Never a Project of Mine

by TransMartain (EternalLibrary)



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Androids, Backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29803575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalLibrary/pseuds/TransMartain
Summary: This living, this living, this livingWas never a project of mine.-From 'Coda' by Dorothy Parker
Relationships: Coda & Porphyry Veil (OCs)
Kudos: 2
Collections: USS Tribble Threat





	Never a Project of Mine

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as me playing a game of [Artificial Malfunction](https://mat-graysun.itch.io/artificial-malfunction) by Mat Graysun to get a feel for Coda's character and quickly spiralled beyond that...  
> Content warnings for shitty scientists doing shitty experiments on a sentient being (not graphic); memory loss; and dehumanization (for a certain definition of 'human').

You come to consciousness laid out on a table under bright white lights. You blink. Your artificial pupils dilate and contract, dilate and contract, making small whirring sounds like a camera shutter, perceptible only to you.

There is talking nearby, but your hearing is too new, you can’t parse the words. Your sensors try to adjust, adjust, adjust…

“– there,” says a voice. “But I’m convinced that was because we were treating it like the other A500’s.”

There’s the sound of typing, then, “I’m initiating olfactory sensors,” says another voice.

Suddenly there’s a whole new sense for you to deal with and you smell sweat and metal and wood shavings and dust and…

“Dial that down a bit,” says the first voice. More typing. Sight regains its place as your strongest sense.

You lie on the table, unable to move, as the voices speak, and the typing continues and suddenly…

There’s a new dimensionality to your thoughts, and you feel, you _feel_ and the sensation is overwhelming and baffling and wondrous. You want to understand, _need_ to understand what is happening, and you try to look around. A servo whirrs up loud with strain.

“It’s trying to move,” says the first voice, and at the corner of your vision there’s a…person. “Don’t move,” the voice – the person – says.

You _want­_ to move though, but before you can determine a way to express this, the second voice says, “Bruce… there’s a warning.”

As the second voice says this, you see the warning displayed in your own vision: _Anomalous Positronic Condition Detected_. You feel…heavy. Like the code in you has all developed _weight_.

“Did this –” the second voice starts.

“No,” the first voice interrupts.

There’s the sound of shuffling, clicking and…

The message vanishes. The voices sigh in tandem. The heavy feeling dissipates.

“Probably just the new equipment,” says the first voice.

Dr Maddox, the owner of the first voice, tells you that the room is yours to do with as you wish. There’s a charging station and a computer console and a replicator, and one wall is all windows, looking out over the grounds of Coppelius station, down to the ocean. It’s getting dark outside, but it’s clear and you can see stars and the twin moons of the planet, one a rising crescent, one high already, and nearly full.

The scientists told you they would come for you in the morning, they have more tests, they say, but for now the night is yours. You’re not sure if you can leave the room. You’re not sure if you want to.

The computer is not connected to subspace – a precaution, you’ll learn later, to prevent the station from being discovered. You’re also blocked from some of the station’s intranet – you can see its fingerprints but cannot access them. A puzzle for later. You try out the replicator. It is preprogrammed with clothes, accessories, miscellany… You replicate something called a ‘scarf’ and two cushions. You don’t sleep, you just watch the moons and the stars change in the sky…

Morning comes and the sun rises. In your memory banks, you know what a sunrise is, can calculate the speed at which this planet travels through space, its rate of rotation, the distance between it and its primary at this point in its orbit… but this is the first time you see a sunrise. It _presses_ on you. The wonder you felt earlier returns and you watch it blush the sky before you see it, bright, brighter than the white lights of the lab, rising over the horizon and up, up, bleaching the sky.

The scientists spend nearly all of their waking hours with you. You learned their names the day before, Dr Maddox and Dr Soong, but they call each other Bruce and Altan.

It takes you some time to acclimate to the world, and the scientists have lots of tests for you, testing your reflexes, sensors, memory, processing. They also take you around the exterior of the station, on short hikes into the desert, down to the seashore, even once or twice into the station’s holodeck.

One or another of the scientists is usually with you – they spell each other off to work on their other research – but they need to sleep, and the nights are your own. Unlike the first night, they’re usually dominated by lighting storms – you can still see the twin red moons though, through the high thin clouds. You’re not supposed to leave your room, for your own safety, they tell you. So you amuse yourself with the replicator, making more and more elaborate clothing, and with the console, gradually poking your way into more of the station’s intranet. You’re going slowly, trying not to be noticed.

You’re on a walk into the desert. The further you go inland, the more the vegetation drops away, sweeping trees replaced with sparse, red brush. A butterfly perches on a branch and beats its wings which change colour – red, blue, green, red again.

You heard the scientists talking earlier that morning, mentioning a Federation. It’s a name that’s come up before, always in conversations that do not include you. But you’re curious. You ask, “What is the Federation?”

Dr Soong looks at you, long and piercing.

“You do have remarkable hearing,” he says. “The United Federation of Planets is one of the largest states in the galaxy.” He explains about the light years of space, the many worlds which it governs.

“We are not in Federation space,” you say.

“No,” Dr Soong agrees. “We left the Federation because we couldn’t do our work there.”

“Your artificial intelligence work,” you say.

“Yes. I’m sure Bruce will want to explain more about this,” he says, and you know it for an evasion, but let him change the topic to how your hardware is handling the heat.

You cannot get current news at the station, but there are some old records stored that you’ve been able to uncover in your explorations through the intranet and that night you do a keyword search for the Federation and artificial intelligence.

You read an article about a place called Utopia Planitia. You read about a ban.

There’s a familiar heavy feeling, strange in its familiarity because your memory has no record of experiencing this feeling before. You search your programming. There’s something…wrong. Like some parts of your memory go back further than others. You cannot reconcile them and consider beginning a diagnostic. But the scientists will see that you have, and will ask why.

The heavy feeling persists, and you pull up a holovid – one that the scientists gave you. It’s not enough to distract you, so you put another on, then another. Watching the three holovids simultaneously takes enough of your awareness, and gradually, the feeling fades.

The first time Porphyry comes to the Station, you don’t even notice their arrival. You’re in a lab, having your reflexes tested. This involves a lot of touching small blinking lights as they appear and disappear. Dr Soong isn’t watching you; his eyes are glued to a readout on a screen. The lights stop. You stand perfectly still as your servos wind down.

After 4.7 seconds he says, “Better.” Then he finally looks up. “Good job.”

Dr Soon will say things like this – words that let you know he thinks of you as more than just a machine – maybe a pet, or something. (It’s the same way he talks to his cat.)

Dr Maddox does not. To him you are an experiment – just K-2012, a step on the path to the perfect synthetic being.

You are not the perfect synthetic being.

You follow Dr Soong out into the courtyard and there is Dr Maddox and – another person. The person is tall and muscular, with dark skin and long, deep blue hair falling around their shoulders. They’re wearing a jacket with more pockets than you’ve ever seen on a single garment and holding a crate. You study them from where you’ve stopped at the edge of the courtyard.

Dr Soong walks over to Dr Maddox and says a few words to him. Maddox nods, then gestures over to you, saying in a carrying voice, “Come and see our latest work.”

The three people walk over to you. You stand, still, hands clasped behind your back.

“This is K-2012,” says Dr Maddox.

“Hello,” says the person. Their voice is higher than either of the scientists’, and as they speak more you notice different inflections that they put on their words. “It’s good to meet you.” They hold out a hand.

You look at it, then at the scientists.

Dr Soong laughs “This is a handshake,” he tells you, then takes the person’s hand to demonstrate. To the person he says, “There hasn’t been much cause to install any interpersonal subroutines.” Slightly apologetic.

The person offers their hand again, and you take it, shake up and down twice as you’d seen Dr Soong do.

“My name is Porphyry,” says the person.

“It’s good to meet you,” you say, parroting their words back to them.

Porphyry grins.

The tests get more complex, stretching your abilities. Sometimes you rise to the challenge – more often you do not. The scientists love when this happens, and chatter excitedly about positronic training. They connect you to the lab mainframe and run tests on your code, changing out variables. It’s…uncomfortable.

But not as uncomfortable as the times when you blink and your internal chronometer has incremented beyond the space of the blink. There is _nothing there_ in the space that the minutes or hours indicate. You think of bringing this up to the scientists but – perhaps it’s a fault in your programming. Surely if they knew about it they’d say something. So you keep it to yourself.

Porphyry makes a point of seeking you out when they visit. You learn they’re delivering supplies, things that can’t be replicated at the Station. They also bring news from the rest of the quadrant. The scientists are eager for this, but you don’t care much. You’ve never known anywhere but this planet.

“Do you call yourself K-2012?” Porphyry asks one day. They like to ask questions like this, ones that seem so simple, but you _don’t know how to answer_.

“I do not call myself anything,” you say.

Porphyry hums, and you worry you’ve answered the question wrong.

“Y’know,” they say, “sometimes people are given a name by their parents or whomever, and it just fits wrong, so they choose one that fits better.”

You’re not entirely sure how this is connected to their earlier question. Are they suggesting you change your designation? You access the relevant files, but an alert warns you that you are not able to change it. _Administrative access required_.

Later, Dr Maddox tells you it’s best not to poke around your core settings. “We don’t want to cause any faults,” he says.

In your room, while lightning flashes high in the atmosphere, you search _carefully_ , trying not to _touch_ anything for any indication that the scientists can monitor your code, your actions, the thoughts you thought were locked safely in your own head. There’s nothing. But you should know better. Nothing is your own.

“Would you like to go for a small adventure?” Porphyry asks you. The scientists have gone back into the lab almost immediately, after getting the new supplies. They’ve been spending 74% more time in the lab, alone, than is typical.

Porphyry notes your 3.2 seconds of silence, and says, “Don’t worry about them, I’ll get you back in time for your curfew.” They say it wryly, as though it’s a joke, but their eyes are serious.

Sometimes you think that they can read your thoughts as well as the scientists. Sometimes you think they can read them better.

You follow Porphyry into the desert, following a path you haven’t taken before. After a journey of 1.3 kilometers, you reach a shuttlecraft. You recognise what it is from holovids, but you’ve never seen one yourself. On one side are the words “Pele ii” in Standard.

“This is your shuttlecraft,” you say to Porphyry.

“Sure is,” they say. They give you a long look, the kind that makes you think they can see the processes running in your mind.

All they say, though, is, “I’ll see you on the other side.” It’s what they always say when they leave.

You watch their shuttle until it’s swallowed in the haze of the atmosphere.

When you return to the station, Dr Soong ushers you into the lab. You blink a moment later – several hours later, your chronometer informs you. The sun is in a different spot in the sky, and both scientists are in the lab now.

“– about the interface,” Dr Maddox is saying.

“The scaffolding is nearly done,” says Dr Soong. “We could attempt in… ten days, maybe sooner.”

The both look at you then, and you feel a familiar-unfamiliar _heaviness_.

You don’t see the scientists at all the next day, though your door unlocks with a quiet _clunk_ of the mechanism at its usual time. You walk into the desert again, to the place where Prophyry’s shuttle was. Dr Soong finds you there in the evening. You don’t question how he knew where you were – you are certain they are tracking you, though you cannot locate the scripts within you that make that possible.

“We’ve got something for you to see,” he says. He’s smiling, temperature elevated slightly. Excitement, you think.

You follow him back to the station and – there are two more people there. Their skin is metallic, like yours, but lighter, more of a gold colour, eyes pale and yellow, hair cropped neat and short. They are identical. They are _androids_.

You stand staring at them. They look back with identical expressions of interest.

“Hello,” the one on the right says. “You are K-2012.”

You don’t answer.

“This is Castor and Polydukes,” says Dr Soong. “Your little brothers,” he jokes.

Dr Maddox throws him an exasperated look.

You hold out a hand, as Porphyry had done when you first met them. The one on the left takes it to shake. So _they’ve_ been programmed with that knowledge, you think. The familiar/unfamiliar _heaviness_ is back. The one on the right shakes your hand as well.

“Why do you not have a name?” the one on the right – Castor – asks.

“My designation is K-2012,” you say. Perhaps there is a fault in their programming, that they do not remember this.

“We never did give Kay-two-oh a real name, eh,” Dr Soong says.

“Is Kay-two-oh not a real name?” Dr Maddox says dryly.

“What do you think?” Dr Soong asks you.

“I have a designation,” you say. “Core settings should not be tampered with.”

“Does it matter?” says Dr Maddox to Dr Soong. “Considering,” he gestures at Castor and Polydukes, but does not elucidate what he is considering.

Your brothers are not like you. It’s not just how they look, it’s the way they move, act, their facial expressions, the cadence of their voices. They spend time outside the lab with you, trying to engage you in conversation. You don’t think you’re very good at it.

More and more, they spend their time together, without you. You don’t mind. You’re spending more and more time in the lab anyway. The patches of missing time become more frequent. They’re _looking_ for something, you think.

One time as you disconnect from the mainframe, you hear the tail end of an argument.

“ – if it’s been destroyed,” Dr Maddox says, angrily.

“We have to assume that it – he – has been,” Dr Soong says, a bit quieter. “Besides, with the ban, who’s going to be digging out old synths?”

You freeze, not wanting to indicate you can hear what they’re saying.

“Plenty of room for more than one secret synth research outpost in the galaxy,” Dr Maddox says. “But there’s no link between them, clearly. I’ll see if any of my contacts know anything, but as for this one…”

He glances at a screen, then over to you, brow furrowed. “Back online?” he says to you.

You nod, slowly, not liking the way he looks at you.

As the time nears when Porphyry should be returning, you don’t feel your normal anticipation of their visit. Surely, you think, they would prefer to spend time with your brothers, who are so much _more_.

They introduce themself to Castor and Polydukes, shakes their hands, seems pleased to meet them. But then Porphyry turns to you and _smiles_. “Good to see you,” they say.

Your core temperature rises by 0.4 degrees.

Porphyry spends a lot of time talking to the scientists, inside the station, while you and your brothers wait in the courtyard. They kick a black and white ball back and forth while you study a butterfly.

When they come out, they motion to you to follow them. You once again take the path to their shuttle, but after .6 kilometers they say, “I have a proposition for you.”

You wait.

“You may know that Maddox and Soong used the data they got from all those…tests…to create your brothers.”

You nod. You’d figured it out.

“Maddox,” Porphyry stops talking, then stops walking. They turn to face you.

“Dr Soong, I think, has gotten fond of you,” they say. Their eyes fixed on yours. It’s slightly uncomfortable, but you don’t look away. “Maddox…still thinks of you as a prototype.” You resist pointing out that you _are_ a prototype.

“There’s still the ban,” they say, and once again you try to follow the connection between their statements. “And they won’t let you go for…proprietary reasons, I suspect,” their eyes narrow, tone sharp. “But I don’t know what will happen to you if you stay.”

You know. You know the familiarity of the tests, the missing time, getting longer and longer… you can extrapolate from the data, see a pattern that eventually ends in you blinking your eyes closed and never opening them again.

“You could come with me,” Prophyry says. You think of their shuttlecraft, disappearing into the atmosphere. Into the expanse of space. You study Porphyry…your friend.

And you say, “Yes.”


End file.
